Local kids let creative juices flow

HOUMA -- Face painting, one ticket. Fruit Loop cereal necklace, four tickets. Mosaic art, six tickets. A day of fun at the St. Matthew’s Episcopal School festival called Just Kids at Art: priceless.

While Saturday afternoon turned out to be rain filled, that didn’t deter hundreds of families from attending the 17th annual fund-raising and community event. It features music, food, books, and, of course, booth after booth of arts and crafts.

The old favorites were there: a booth for decorating baby pumpkins with glitter and a course where kids could show off their skills with a water balloon sling-shot.

Some new activities made an appearance, too. A booth that turned children into pirates was a huge success. Kids could get a bandana, eye patch and stick-on tattoo to look the part. Then, to top it all off, they could add a Styrofoam sword -- after they colored it with markers and decorated it with beads.

While the school’s art festival is one of its biggest fund-raisers, the event is also designed to nourish youngsters’ creativity, said Michelle Bassham, festival chairwoman.

"Our focus is to bring art into the community and promote the school and be a good thing for families to do that’s not expensive," Bassham said.

A number of booths set up in the west-Houma schoolyard offered free activities, such as an origami booth and the performances on stage.

And the booths catered to both older kids, like those lined up at the paintball-target tent, and to younger ones, like those clamoring for a turn at the pottery-painting station.

Over at the mosiac-art booth, Katrina Beo, a 5-year-old student at St. Gregory Barbarigo School, was delicately placing marbles and rocks on top of wet cement. In a few hours, it would harden into a picture of a heart.

Katrina takes summer art classes, said her mother, Victoria Beo.

"She likes to draw …," Victoria said.

"… and make art!" Katrina added enthusiastically.

Then Katrina held up her hands to show off her bright red fingernails, a manicure she got at one of the festival’s booths.

Yvonne Ledet, who coordinated the volunteers, said the festival probably had 200 or so volunteers working the booths. Most of the volunteers are parents, she said, but others are junior-high and high-school students earning community service hours for school.

Jared Carrere, 14, of Houma, said he also went to the festival because he attended St. Matthew’s before he moved on to Vandebilt Catholic High School. Carrere also has a unique connection to the festival.

Last year’s T-shirt design, a colorful picture of a kid dreaming about arts and crafts, came from his imagination.

"I wanted to see if I could win. I like to draw and stuff, be creative," Carrere said.

This year’s winning T-shirt design started with the theme, "A Splash of Color." Christian Schweer, 8, joined the theme with the school’s mascot, a dolphin, to come up with her design. It was created last year, when she was in second grade at St. Matthew’s.

"She was diligent with it," said Bambi Schweer, Christian’s mother.

Christian worked hard at the drawing of a dolphin jumping over a bright blue sea, her mother said. Little creatures -- an octopus, crab and starfish -- seems to dance underneath the water’s waves. And above, a colorful rainbow rains down multi-colored rain drops.

Changing the color of the rain from blue to many colors was the idea of Christian’s sister, Victoria, 10, Christian said.

But it was Christian who drew, erased and redrew until the seascape was complete.